Tuesday, December 20, 2016

As I wrote in a blog last April, I have decided to write
here about Israel and the U.S. only infrequently—in part because there seems to
be fewer and fewer new things to say, in part because there are now many
excellent commentaries available on the internet, in part because it’s a lost
cause anyway, and in part because my working time is mostly devoted to working
on a big book on the topic (lost cause or not).

However, aside from Israeli-related issues, I have over
fifty years experience in reading, teaching, and writing about general issues in
American foreign policy. Therefore , I’ve decided to widen the scope of this
blog (and will soon rename it accordingly), to include general commentaries on
foreign policy, war and peace, and national as well as international
security.

Not there’s any shortage of excellent commentators on
these topics, either. Still, from time to time maybe I can have something a
little different to say. Anyway, such are the dreadful times we live in that
one must at least try to say something useful. However, even with this wider
new scope, my blogs will be infrequent. Therefore, the best way to know that
I’ve posted a new blog is to sign up for automatic email notification (at the
top of the column to the right).

The “Balance
of Power” and a Coming War with China?The traditional American policy of isolationism
permanently ended with our entry into World War II, and since then the
fundamental premise of U.S. foreign policy has been that national security
requires the maintenance of a balance of power in the major world regions, a
goal worth going to war over, if necessary. Thus, the preservation of the
balance of power in Europe and Asia was the fundamental (though not the only)
reason that the U.S. government decided to go to war against Nazi Germany and
Japan; after their defeat, the same goal was pursued by the policy of
containment, designed to prevent Soviet, Chinese or merely communist
expansionism, especially in Europe and Asia.

Currently, a new variation of balance of power
strategies—“offshore balancing”--has become the dominant “grand strategy”
advocated by national security academicians and, evidently, by national security
government officials—at least those in the Obama administration, though not
necessarily by that name. Under such a
strategy, U.S. security would continue to require military intervention if an
aggressive major power threatened to destroy the balance of power in Europe, the
Middle East, and Asia. Differing from previous versions of balance of power
strategies, however, advocates of offshore balancing argue that our national
security is best served by eschewing large ground operations in favor of keeping
our forces “offshore,” that is, on “over the horizon” naval and air
forces.

There is a rather large qualification, however, to this
strategy, as developed by its most prominent and sophisticated advocates, John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt (“The Case for Offshore
Balancing,” Foreign Affairs, July/August 2016). They write
that “the aim is to remain offshore as long as possible.”
Nonetheless, they argue, sometimes it may be necessary “to come onshore.” This
is a rather large qualification to the general argument, for it means that
sometimes it may still be necessary, just as in the past, to fight major land
wars in Europe, the Middle East, and Asia.

While an improvement on previous balance of power
policies--which required overseas land bases and the continuing deployment of
large-scale standing ground forces, meaning that any outbreak of military
conflicts were likely to quickly escalate into major war—offshore balancing is
still fundamentally flawed, for it continues to rest on the largely unexamined
axiom or premise that U.S. national security requires the maintenance of
balances of power in world’s most important regions.

Let us examine the case for “containing” China—a
different name for balance of power policies---the obvious though unacknowledged
purpose of the Obama Administration’s military “pivot” toward Asia.
As a consequence of the balance-of-power
strategy, the U.S. has fought three major wars in Asia in the last seventy-five
years: against Japan in WWII, in Korea in 1950-53, and in Vietnam in the 1960s.
If balance of power thinking continues—including that of offshore
balancing--there will be a growing risk that this country may stumble into its
worst and most dangerous war yet, against a nuclear-armed China.

In light of the fact that Japan is almost 4000 miles and
China over 5000 miles from Hawaii (as well as 5500 and 6500 miles, respectively,
from the U.S. mainland), it is instructive to reflect on how and why the United
States came to believe that its national security required the maintenance of a
balance of power in Asia. It appears that it began “in a fit of absence of
mind,” as 19th century British colonialism was famously
characterized.

That is, in 1898 the U.S.
“acquired” (as it is often quaintly described) the Philippines, then a Spanish
colony, as an initially unintended and unforeseen byproduct of the U.S. defeat
of Spain in the Spanish-American War—largely fought over Cuba, at least until an
imperial-minded Assistance Secretary for the Navy, one Teddy Roosevelt by name,
decided to take advantage of the war to send the Navy to the Philippines and
destroy the unsuspecting Spanish fleet anchored in Manilla Bay, over 9600
miles from Cuba.

President William McKinley pondered what to do next. In
1899 the president told a group of clergymen that he “walked the floor of the
White House night after night” praying for divine guidance. “And then one night
it came to me in this way—(1) we could not give the Philippines back to
Spain—that would be cowardly and dishonorable... (2) we could not turn them over
[to other European colonial powers ]…. There was nothing left to do but take
them all, and…uplift and civilize them…..I sent for the chief engineer of the
War Department (our map-maker), and I told him to put the Philippines on the map
of the United States and there they will stay while I am
President.”

The U.S. takeover of the Philippines in 1898, then, was
an absurd historical accident. Yet, from such a little acorn a hugely
dangerous oak has grown, for an unexamined policy axiom took root: the U.S. must
maintain a balance of power in Asia to prevent a potentially hostile power from
dominating all of China and then being in a position to threaten the
Philippines.

Put differently, WWII reinforced and deepened US
perceptions of itself as a "Pacific" or even an “Asian power,” with a vital
interest in maintaining the Asian balance of power against any new challengers.
As a result, the U.S. sought to prevent the communists from winning the
post-WWII civil war in China, intervened in another civil war in Korea, fought
an unnecessary war with China after refusing to settle for the restoration of
the status quo ante in Korea, went to war in Vietnam to prevent the Vietnamese
communists from winning a revolutionary civil war there—and in the process may
have come perilously close to an unnecessary full-scale war with China in the
late 1960s, a war that even then might have become a nuclear
one.The China Issue TodayApparently accepting the alarmist view of the
capabilities and intentions of China, the Obama administration has essentially
adopted the policy of containment by means of offshore balancing. In late 2011
the administration began its “pivot” or “rebalancing” of American foreign policy
from Europe to Asia. In a number of speeches as well as background explanations
by high administration officials, Obama and Secretary of State Kerry set out the
new U.S. policy and the rationale behind it, which essentially is that as “a
Pacific Nation”--shades of Richard Nixon during the Vietnam War!—the U.S. would
play a larger and long term role in shaping the region and its
future.

Among the actions taken by the Obama administration in
the last four years to implement this new policy are the following:

*It has made new naval and air deployments in the
region; the Pentagon’s goal is said to be to ensure that 60% of America’s
military power—especially submarine forces and aircraft carriers; this is
already well underway. .

*It has deployed 2,500 marines in
Australia.

*It has increased military assistance and cooperation
and joint military exercises with Japan, the Philippines, South Korea, and
Vietnam.

*It has announced that the U.S. would spend an
additional $250 million dollars to build up the naval capabilities of Indonesia,
the Philippines, Malaysia and Vietnam—and perhaps even more importantly, it is
considering the reestablishment of the huge U.S. military base in the
Philippines that had been closed down in 1992.

Unsurprisingly, China sees itself as a defensive state
legitimately alarmed by these US actions, and has taken a series of steps,
including what we see as military “provocations,” in order to assert what it
considers to be its national rights in the region. The consequence is that we
are coming dangerously close to outright military clashes with China, which no
matter how limited they initially may to be, contain the wholly unacceptable
risk of escalating into a major war—and even a nuclear war.

In evaluating U.S. policies, three issues must be
considered. First, is China truly an expansionist state that seeks to establish
hegemony over the entire region? Second, even if China has such intentions—or
later develops them as its military and economic power continue to expand—will
it have the capability of destroying the Asian balance of power? The third issue
is by the far most important one in terms of U.S. national security: why should
the United States be prepared to use armed force, even if that were the only
way to prevent Chinese domination of Asia?

To begin with, most China and regional specialists are
skeptical about pessimistic or alarmist assessments of the Chinese threat in
Asia. Rather, they argue that despite the admittedly worrying Chinese military
buildup in general and in the South China Sea in particular, together with its
assertive claims to small islands also claimed by other Asian states, Chinese
behavior should be best understood as motivated not by the grandiose and
unattainable goal of gaining “hegemony” over the region, but by more limited
factors. In this view, then, China’s policies have been moderate, essentially
defensive, and reactive rather than aggressive, driven (1) by fears of Japan and
the United States as well as by its historically understandable sense of
vulnerability to perceived threats on its borders that it shares with fourteen
states--four of which (Russia, North Korea, Pakistan and India) have nuclear
weapons; (2) by its growing economic
interests in the disputed islands, and (3) by largely symbolic nationalist
claims to “sovereignty” over the contested areas, claims that are said to have
some historical validity.

Secondly, if China’s policies threatened to harm the
important national interests of other Asian states, they would be hardly unable
to defend them. Especially if they should act collectively, states like Japan,
South Korea, Taiwan, India, Pakistan, and even the Philippines and Vietnam would
be hardly helpless—even in the absence of any U.S. role at all—to defend
themselves and their vital interests against any theoretical Chinese
expansionism.

To be sure, there is a substantial argument that
U.S. military disengagement in Asia might lead to further nuclear proliferation
in the region. In particular, it likely would increase the incentives for Japan,
South Korea, and Taiwan to develop their own independent nuclear deterrent
forces. Still, there are good arguments against letting legitimate concerns over
proliferation dominate U.S. Asian policies.

To begin, the overall effects of the already-existing
proliferation of nuclear weapons since 1945 have been stabilizing rather than
destabilizing—MAD certainly worked in Europe. While there can be no guarantee
that the same result would occur in Asia should further proliferation take place
there, the real question is whether it can be prevented, and at what
cost.

Furthermore, even if the U.S. withdrew from the region,
Asian states might still decide against going nuclear, which is hardly
cost-free either in terms of money or of increased tensions and possible dangers
of a nuclear arms race throughout Asia. Conversely, paradoxically, even if the
U.S. commitments and military presence continue, there is no guarantee that our
Asian allies won’t decide to go nuclear anyway, based on the fear that if
faced with an imminent war with China, the U.S. would renege on its commitments
to go to war on their behalf. Indeed, that would be a perfectly rational
assumption, since it would be quite mad for the U.S. to actually live up to such
“commitments.”

In any case, the debate over Chinese intentions and
capabilities (whichever view should prove correct) is not the central question
for U.S. foreign policy—which is whether the U.S. should be prepared to go to
war to prevent possible Chinese hegemony over Northeast Asia. In considering
this issue, let’s assume the worst case, in which China should turn out to be a
radically expansionist state that somehow gained control of all the resources
and population of Asia. Even so, U.S. national security—our only truly “vital”
national interest—would not be at stake. There are only two ways in which our
security could be threatened: by a conventional invasion or by a nuclear attack. No one takes
seriously the notion that a China, even somehow controlling the population, land
masses, and economy of Asia, would be capable of crossing thousands of miles of
ocean and invading a nuclear-armed United States.

And as for the nuclear
danger, it already exists, for China is capable of a massive nuclear
attack against the U.S. from the weapons within its homeland, a threat that is
already (or very soon will be ) essentially absolute, meaning that any later
Chinese expansionism would be irrelevant and would do little or nothing to
increase its capabilities that threaten America.

What should follow is that we can avert any theoretical
Chinese threat to vital national interests by relying on our own nuclear
deterrence capabilities while also avoiding any war, including “limited”
wars, with China. Put differently, the most likely “threats”--Chinese border
conflicts with neighboring states or military clashes over sovereignty claims in
the South China Sea-- have the least relevance to U.S. national security, while
the most theoretically dangerous ones--Chinese military expansionism throughout
Asia--are the least likely to occur.

ConclusionIt has long been an axiom of policymakers and academics
alike that U.S. national security requires the maintenance or restoration of the
“balance of power” in Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. The underlying logic or
premise of the wars fought for those purposes was that it was better to fight a
war now—even a major war—than inevitably to have to later fight an even more
devastating war against an increasingly powerful and expansionist state or
coalition of states. This was the logic that led to the U.S. government’s
decision to join the war against Nazi Germany before it had conquered even more
territory and resources; to impose severe economic sanctions against Japan that
it knew would likely lead to a war with that country; and to abandon
“isolationism”—better understood as “military noninterventionism”-- after WWII
in favor of the policy of containment, designed to ensure that the balance of
power in Europe and Asia would not be threatened by the Soviet Union and
communist China. However, even if that logic was compelling in the past,
it no longer makes any sense to fight a war now than a supposedly even worse war
later, for the costs of going to war now against nuclear powers would already be
beyond comprehension, whereas the postulated later war might not occur—indeed
would probably not occur--at all .For this reason, an overall US strategy of military
disengagement and noninterventionism is far better suited to protect U.S.
national security interests in Asia than any version of balance of power
strategies, including offshore balancing. What follows is that we should be
ending our military presence in Asia—as opposed to our present policy of
increasing it--and gradually withdraw from our political and military alliances
and commitments, de facto or formal. To be sure, it is true that U.S. allies in
Asia (as well as in Europe)—and probably many neutrals as well—do not want
America to withdraw its armed forces and military commitments in their regions,
but that is hardly a decisive argument in favor of continuing them: we have to
make independent judgments about the nature of U.S. interests, the necessity of
the use of force, the chances for success, the costs and risks we are prepared
to accept, and the probability that states that feel threatened can defend
themselves if they were forced to stop relying on this country.

In sum, the best way for the U.S. to protect its
national security from potential Asian threats is to jettison balance of power
strategies, in any form, and never again go to war there.—any war, not just
ground forces wars.

About Me

I am a professor (emeritus) of political science, currently holding the position of University Research Scholar, State University of New York at Buffalo. Since 1963 I have taught and written about U.S. foreign policy and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, both for professional journals (such as International Security, Security Studies, and Political Science Quarterly) and for the general reading public, such as Dissent, Tikkun, and (many years ago, as might be imagined), New Republic. I also write many lead foreign policy columns for the Sunday Viewpoints section of the Buffalo News, and I have recently been invited to become a regular blogger for the Huffington Post. Click here to view the Mission Statement.